“We think going forward, the important thing is to be able to attract consumers to fall in love with the things you do and be attracted to them, not only for the things you do but for where you stand as a company,” Walker said this week during NeoCon.

At the annual three-day trade show in Chicago, Herman Miller – and its partners - garnered seven Best of NeoCon awards, more than any other West Michigan furniture company.

Walker says he appreciated that the awards ran the spectrum from Luxo's new 360 LED lamp to the re-imaging of classic Eames outdoor furniture. It shows the breadth of the company’s high-design product lines.

The Zeeland office furniture company’s permanent third floor showroom Merchandise Mart was packed with the company’s customers, many of whom represent firms in the architecture and design industry.

Herman Miller and other furniture companies are positioning themselves for the changes ahead in the workplace now that mobile technology lets work be done anywhere.

“A big part of the dialogue is about saying ‘Hey, the world of the office is changing and it’s no longer going to be just about individual work,” said Walker. “It’s going to be a lot about how groups co-create, and it’s going to be about spaces that have the richness and variety of things you love in your personal life, along with the tools you need to do your heads-down work. And we really came prepared to sort of say that’s what we are all about.”

This year, the company reintroduced The Herman Miller Collection in a pop-up store in New York City’s SoHo district that drew more than a thousand people on opening night, and lots of press including the New York Times.

“It was sort of that unveiling that we can create a whole lifestyle for people that is maybe broader than what they would have thought of us in the past,” Walker said.

The store - which will close in July after a two-month run, has been about having a dialogue with customers. It’s clear, says Walker, that today’s consumer wants to have a relationship with the companies they buy from.

The pop-up store was about getting deeper into a dialogue with the people who want to develop that relationship.

The collection includes iconic designs by Eames, Nelson and Noguchi that have been freshly reinterpreted with new materials and manufacturing technologies.

These classics have been paired with award-winning contemporary designs from Italian alliance partners Magis and Mattiazzi, which include the work of Konstantin Grcic, Jasper Morrison and brothers Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.

While Herman Miller remains true to its mid-century modern roots, the company isn’t in the antiques business or trying to recreate the products dotting the "Mad Men" scenery.

“We think what Herman Miller does from a design perspective is not bound by time, and it’s not bound by genre,” said Walker. “It’s bound by doing great work that people love and things that will last for a long time. They are timeless in their design and execution.”